DiFara Pizza

[Pan]

I went after work at Brooklyn College today with a colleague. Nina's right: It's a zoo on weekends. I had my heart set on sharing a calzone with Matthew, but it took a long time before Dominic could get to us, so we shared a mushroom slice. It's not as good when it isn't hot out of the oven, but it was still tasty.

For our calzone, we got prosciutto with artichokes. The prosciutto, in thick chunks, was delicious, but I don't think the calzone was quite as good as the porcini/onion calzone I shared with Nina, BklynEats, and ahr on Monday. But it was still excellent.

I think that part of the difference could have been that Maggie wasn't there today.

Still and all, the food was excellent, and Matthew was delighted and plans on returning. I have to say I'm not sure I'm in a rush to return on another Saturday, though. Nina had the right idea, going on a Monday.

[jaybee]

Nine of us gathered tonight at DiFara's for a feast, orchestrated by LaNiña and cooked by Dom and his daughter. Four differrent pizzas, two different calzones, veal and peppers, buffalo mozzarella, braciole, pasta vagiole, insalata, chestnuts in rum and sugar, much much vino. much much fun.

The food is all that and more. It was Italian food at its most relevant.

I liked the square pizza since it was the first one and I was hungriest. The brocoli rape and sausage pizza was uncanny. Both calzones were superb. Oh how I wish he were in my neighborhood. I might have to ride the Circle Q more often.

Edited January 22, 2003 by jaybee (log)

[Sandra Levine]

Confirming that DiFara's lives up to its reputation. First rate toppings on the pizza, including freshly cooked artichokes on light, dry, but pliable crust. The only thing I missed was the fine, carcinogenic char that only a coal oven imparts.

[Toby]

Sublime food. I've never been a pizza lover, but I can see many trips to Brooklyn in my future. The chestnuts in white rum and sugar were unbelievable. Great company as well. Many thanks to Nina for organizing another wonderful evening out in the boroughs.

[La Niña]

Menu details:

Square (Sicilian) pizza

Round pizza with artichokes

Round pizza with broccoli di rape, garlic, and sausage

Calzone with prosciutto & porcinis

Calzone with eggplant & red onion

Braciole

Veal & Peppers

Salad

Pasta Fagiole

Mozzarella di Bufala (he gave us some plain chunks to taste)

Chestnuts soaked in sugar and rum

Vino, vino, vino

Edited January 22, 2003 by La Niña (log)

[laura]

Thank you Nina. . This is truly pizza brought to another realm entirely. My favorite among favorites

was the artichoke pizza, a disc of molten cheeses, non greasy, when combined with artichokes {vrai}

resulted in an ambrosial combination. {Who would ever think that I would wax ecstatic about pizza}

But really it was the whole experience. An artisan who really knows what he is doing ,in our midst, in

Brooklyn . Not really that far away for an authentic experience. A rare commodity nowadays. The wines

and the company were also great.

[awbrig]

what are the prices for their pizza etc...

[La Niña]

The whole meal came to $20 bucks each.

Edited January 22, 2003 by La Niña (log)

[muon]

Menu details:

Square (Sicilian) pizza

Round pizza with artichokes

Round pizza with broccoli di rape, garlic, and sausage

Calzone with prosciutto & porcinis

Calzone with eggplant & red onion

Braciole

Veal & Peppers

Salad

Pasta Fagiole

Mozzarella di Bufala (he gave us some plain chunks to taste)

Chestnuts soaked in sugar and rum

Vino, vino, vino

Question -- are these items available, and would the quality be consistent, for someone walking in off the street (given La Niña's connection to the owner)?

One casualty of this site, specifically the New York forum, is that my a-list of restaurants to experience is growing significantly faster than my ability to do so. Di Fara's is on the short list -- as well as DB Bistro Moderne, and about a dozen Lebanese take-outs in the tri-state area -- additions within the past week. And this, to a person for whom living expenses have dramatically increased in the past month, and now has a personal commitment to make more meals at home. Perhaps I should not leave the confines of the cooking forum.

-- m.

[awbrig]

probably stupid question: do they deliver or offer takeout?

[La Niña]

Menu details:

Square (Sicilian) pizza

Round pizza with artichokes

Round pizza with broccoli di rape, garlic, and sausage

Calzone with prosciutto & porcinis

Calzone with eggplant & red onion

Braciole

Veal & Peppers

Salad

Pasta Fagiole

Mozzarella di Bufala (he gave us some plain chunks to taste)

Chestnuts soaked in sugar and rum

Vino, vino, vino

Question -- are these items available, and would the quality be consistent, for someone walking in off the street (given La Niña's connection to the owner)?

One casualty of this site, specifically the New York forum, is that my a-list of restaurants to experience is growing significantly faster than my ability to do so. Di Fara's is on the short list -- as well as DB Bistro Moderne, and about a dozen Lebanese take-outs in the tri-state area -- additions within the past week. And this, to a person for whom living expenses have dramatically increased in the past month, and now has a personal commitment to make more meals at home. Perhaps I should not leave the confines of the cooking forum.

-- m.

Not everything is available on a regular basis. They only make braciole once in a while. They'll do veal and peppers if you ask, if they have the right stuff on hand. Pasta fagiole - either they make it or they don't - you have to get lucky. As for the quality - if Maggie's not in the kitchen, the cooking is not nearly as good (her 2 brothers work 2 days each). The pizza is always great - Dom is the only one who makes a pizza, ever.

As for the pizzas - you can get those pizzas at any time, as long as he has all the ingredients on hand.

The chestnuts were special for us, as were the chunks of bufala mozarella.

Edited September 24, 2004 by Jason Perlow (log)

[La Niña]

probably stupid question:  do they deliver or offer takeout?

No delivery. But you can get pizza to takeout - you just have to order it, and wait for it.

[macrosan]

Why do they make square pizzas ? Is it just for visual variety, or do they cook differently, or can they just get more in the oven ?

[La Niña]

The square pizzas are a different animal entirely. The crust is thicker. The sauce is a cooked sauce, as opposed to the sauce for round pizzas, which is uncooked. The flavor of the square pizza is quite different from the flavor of the round pizzas. And the preparation is different between the two styles. The square pizzas are known as "Sicilian" pizzas.

[Toby]

The chestnuts looked as if they had been cooked first (I don't know if roasted or boiled; they were very tender) and then left to sit in the sugar and white rum. The rum was very strong and flavorful. Maybe Nina can get more precise instructions; it looked like once you got past peeling the chestnuts, then all they had to do was sit around in the rum for a while. They were packed into a tall glass bottle, slightly diamond-shaped, I think.

The veal with red peppers was my favorite of the non-pizza, non-calzone dishes. The veal was very tender and the red peppers had great flavor. The buffalo mozzarella was very different from other buffalo mozzarellas I've eaten -- it was incredibly tender with just a suggestion of the fibery-type structure that holds mozzarella together.

The calzones were amazing -- ring-shaped, something like two feet in diameter, with an outside edge like bear claws, these were baked, not fried. As someone remarked, they were truly artisanal. The calzone came with a dish of tomato sauce that we passed around. I can't remember if this was the same sauce that went on the square pizza??

All the food had such depth and soul to it; it looked and tasted like food cooked by people who knew exactly what they were doing and loved doing it.

[jaybee]

Charles and I kept saying how the individual tastes of the herbs and the ingredients (pine nuts, raisins, basil, garlic, thyme, tomato,) were clearly singing though yet blending to make the whole taste. The freshness of the herbs and the clarity of the flavors gave each dish an exciting taste with lots ging on in one's mouth. Every bite brought a fresh burst ot tastes. It is so rare to find that level of discernable tastes in what are usually homogenized, unipolar dishes where no ingredient stands out..

[Sandra Levine]

The chestnuts looked as if they had been cooked first (I don't know if roasted or boiled; they were very tender) and then left to sit in the sugar and white rum.

To me the chestnuts looked like broken pieces of marrons glacee, soaked in the rum, with perhaps some additional sugar.

There is an anomaly: this superior food is served in aluminum take-out containers and eaten with plastic utensils from paper plates, in the most modest surroundings imaginable.

Edited January 22, 2003 by Sandra Levine (log)

[Stephanie]

I brought a friend of mine to DiFara's on Monday, and she positively swooned over the square and artichoke slices. I think it is now on the top of her "favorite restaurants of all time" list.

BTW, the zeppoles are not too greasy but they come with a ton of sugar. You get 4 per standard order. Perhaps with less pizza in our stomachs we would have appreciated them more.

[Stone]

The square pizzas are a different animal entirely.  The crust is thicker. The sauce is a cooked sauce, as opposed to the sauce for round pizzas, which is uncooked.  The flavor of the square pizza is quite different from the flavor of the round pizzas.  And the preparation is different between the two styles. The square pizzas are known as "Sicilian" pizzas.

What means you by "cooked" sauce v. "uncooked" sauce -- or is it obvious?

Is square pizza what I know as Sicilian?

[Toby]

Nina, wasn't there something about prosciutto being cooked in one of the sauces?

[La Niña]

Yeah, just the obvious - cooked vs. uncooked. Same tomatoes. For the cooked one, he puts in hunks of prosciutto di parma, then takes them out before using the sauce. I've had the pleasure of eating some of those hunks after they come out of the sauce - yum.

Yes, square = Sicilian (didn't I say that?)

Edited January 22, 2003 by La Niña (log)

[ahr]

Upon returning from your chefly conference, did you not also report that the Sicilian sauce was cooked with prosciutto, which pig was removed before serving? And that this was also the sauce served for calzone-dipping (and in the other cooked dishes?)?

[La Niña]

Yes indeed.

I have also had the uncooked cold sauce for dipping calzones on occasion - that's very good, too.

Edited January 22, 2003 by La Niña (log)

[macrosan]

The square pizzas are known as "Sicilian" pizzas.

When I was in Siciliy, I never saw a square pizza. Nina, could you ask the di Faras sometime whether that's just a name that's used in America, or whether there really is some tradition of square pizzas in Sicily.

[jaybee]

It might be useful to point out that DiFara's is physically an unpreposessing place. It looks like your ordinary by-the-slice pizza joint. If you walked by not knowing how good the food is, you'd probably keep walking. That'd be your loss.